Tekto

Year 22, Day 415 (Explorer-A Departs for Sarnus!)

sayburstuff Year 22 , , , , ,

“Alright – let’s light this candle! Systems check… power up the reactor!”
-Edan

“Reactor powering up … radiators are showing full dispersion… full power available!”
-Rozer

Explorer’s powerful Colossus Engine fires – accelerating the Deep Space Vehicle out of orbit… and toward Sarnus!

The crew hops into their Cryo-Statis chambers and get ready for a nice nap before the long journey to Sarnus!

“See you guys above Tekto!”
-Samner

Explorer sails off, heading to an intercept with Sarnus in just 3 years!

Year 22, Day 414 (Last Explorer Payload Launches, Explorer-A Gets Ready to Depart!)

sayburstuff Year 22 , , , , ,

Launching on a Nebula Rocket this last component will provide both orbital scanning and a test landing on Tekto!

The payload separates…

… and the first stage turns around, to return to KSC!

Mission Control pilots the lander probe to orbit!

“Mission Control – we see the probe out the window! We’ll take over from here!”
–Edan

Edan pilots the lander probe into place and docks with Explorer!

“Ejecting the extra stage – we’re fully loaded! Let’s start up all our systems and go to Sarnus!”
-Edan

Year 22, Day 409 (Explorer-A Crew and Lander Launch to Orbit!)

sayburstuff Year 22 , , , , ,

Edbert, Edan, Rozer, and Samner blast off from KSC – launching both Crew Vehicle 1 and a Lander that (should) be rated for Tekto!

“Hold on everyone – the Nebula Heavy has a real kick!”

-Edan

At a 200k altitude, the Crew Vehicle and the Lander separate, and the bottom boosters turn around and burn to get as close as possible to KSC.

“Separation good… firing orbital stage for rendevous…”

-Edbert

Edbert rendezvouses the Crew Vehicle with Explorer, bring the craft within 50 meters!

“Got us lined up… moving in for final docking maneuver!”

-Edbert

Success! Edbert docks with Explore! Next – the lander is remotely navigated into the docking bay – but first, the new crew (Edan, Rozer, and Samner) transfer over to Explorer – and Edbert detaches, and returns to Kerbin!

After a few minutes, the lander breaks through the clouds…

… and lands just outside of the Space Center!

Back in orbit, the lander is remotely piloted into the cargo bay!

“Mission Control… we show a good connection – let’s get this ship started up!”

-Edan

Year 22, Day 390 (Sarnus Mission Chosen for Explorer-A!)

sayburstuff Year 22 , , , , ,

Mission Planners have decided to try a landing at Tekto, a moon of Sarnus! Very little is known about this moon, so a Mini Scanner/Lander (that conveniently has been under development!) will be launched to attach to the nose of Explorer.

If a landing is possible the crew will attempt it, if it looks like the landing is too dangerous, Explorer will transition to a different moon to attempt a landing.

Edan, Samner and Rozer will launch to orbit along with a lander to dock with Explorer in orbit!

“Clocks ticking everyone.. let’s get this mission going!”

-Gene, at Mission Control

Frontier 1 & 2 Update (Journey to Sarnus)

sayburstuff Year 4 , , , ,

Frontier 1 is just days from its encounter with Sarnus – Frontier 1 was launched merely to test the capabilities of the Frontier design, and was considered a bit of a long shot. However, this probe will still be the first to reach any of the outer planets. Sadly, it will only have enough fuel to do a high speed fly-by, before continuing on an escape trajectory out of the Kerbol star system!

screenshot849.pngThankfully, the Frontier 2 Probe will soon perform a minor course correction in just 36 days.  If calculations are correct, this will let the probe fly extremely close to Sarnus itself, and then have an encounter with Sarnus’s moon, Tekto. With any luck there will be enough fuel to allow the spacecraft to circularize around this mysterious Moon!